The Kafue Railway Bridge was built to carry the Livingstone to

Lusaka Lusaka ( ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Zambia. It is one of the fastest-developing cities in southern Africa. Lusaka is in the southern part of the central plateau at an elevation of about . , the city's population was abo ...

railway line in what is now

Zambia Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...

over the

Kafue River The long Kafue River is the longest river lying wholly within Zambia. Its water is used for irrigation and for generating Hydroelectricity, hydroelectric power. It is the largest tributary of the Zambezi, and of Zambia's principal rivers, it ...

in 1906. It is a steel girder

truss bridge A truss bridge is a bridge whose load-bearing superstructure is composed of a truss, a structure of connected elements, usually forming triangular units. The connected elements, typically straight, may be stressed from tension, compression, or ...

of 13 spans each of supported on concrete piers. It was built for Mashonaland Railways, later merged into

Rhodesian Railways The National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ), formerly Rhodesia Railways (RR), is a Bulawayo headquartered state-owned enterprise that operates the country's national railway system. It was established in 1893 and is governed by an Act of Parliament ...

which operated the line from 1927 until succeeded in Zambia by

Zambia Railways Zambia Railways (ZR) is the national railway company of Zambia and one of the two major railway organisations in Zambia. The other system is the binational TAZARA Railway (TAZARA) that interconnects with the ZR at Kapiri Mposhi and provides a li ...

in 1966. With a length of the Kafue Railway Bridge was the longest bridge on the Rhodesian Railways network. It includes nearly of embankments raised about where the line crosses the river's wider rainy season channel, and a lower embankment about long where it crosses the river's the shallower floodplain to the south-west of the bridge. The bridge is visible at decimal latitude/longitude -15.7876, 28.1766. The town of

Kafue Kafue is a town on the T2 road in the Lusaka Province of Zambia and it lies on the north bank of the Kafue River, after which it is named. It is the southern gateway to the central Zambian plateau on which Lusaka and the mining towns of Kabwe ...

is at the bridge's northern end and the Kafue Bridge on the T2 road is downstream.

References

Bridges in Zambia Bridges completed in 1906 Railway bridges in Zambia 1906 establishments in the British Empire {{Africa-bridge-struct-stub

See also

References